Theghost.odt
The ghost of Dr. Lynus Hayes (Starting Point Story ) The ghost ofDr. Lynus Hayes had haunted the corridors of the Exhault 5 space station for 1500 years. In that time he had broken several records; first confirmed haunting of an artificial satellite; first confirmed spiritual visitation by a Nobel laureate; first ghost to be given the Diana Spencer Award for Contributions to Paranormal Science (awarded posthumously, of course). Now, as the station was scheduled to be demolished, Dr. Lynus Hayes was making headlines once again. -1- Seiko really hated the graveyard shift. What sense did it make to fix the enviro leak in corridor 7-A when the entire station was about to be sold to Spatial Salvage Inc. and then broken down for scrap? No one needed Exhault 5 anymore. This space station was way too small to serve as a service station. Oh sure 1500 years ago it was the main traffic hub of this planet less star. The star had been discovered in Pre Astro times and was marked in the Union star catalogs as DENIS 1048-39 and known as Denis Star. This this extremely dim brown dwarf was of little importance but it was 13.2 Light-years from Sol and Earth and thus had to have a space station. When they offered a laid back and easy job as Enviro maintenance engineer on an old space station it sounded like a good thing but it was too boring even for him. Well in two month it would be all over. He would move to the new station, much closer to the local brown dwarf, big enough to serve to serve as a stopover for full size battle ships and the real big freighters making the core run from Petra and Blue Moon to Sol and vice versa. The new station was a full Gigamon and that meant first class recreation and entertainment. But until the new station was completed, this one had to be maintained. Not that it served much of a purpose other than being a GalNet repeater relay. The corridor was deserted, not that there was many personnel left in the first place, but at this time in the wee hours just past the ten hour, or past midnight OTT (Old Terran time) not even a janitor robot was active. It was an old station but like everything Union, everything was spot less and sparkling clean. Space Station operations manual, section 61 spelled out in bureaucratic detail how much dust particles per cubic meter were acceptable. This is why he was here at that ungodly hour with his faithful robotic tool box following him, Gork the idiot had transferred the entire recycling load of deck 8 in the sub distribution net that was not designed to take such a load. The result, a busted line, and the smelly gob all over the shiny floor. Well the robots had cleaned the mess earlier, but the line was still busted. Fixing it could not wait, as the crew quarters a deck below had bathrooms that could not be used until the line was fixed. Few things made spacers more irate than not being able to take a dump. Well there it was, should be an easy fix, take out the broken manifold and replace it with a new one. In moments like this all by himself he of course remembered the stories of this place being haunted. A genuine ghost was supposed to appear and cause all kinds of mischief. The ghost even had a name and a title Dr. Lynus Hayes. Of course it was all bogus, perhaps a hoax of bored engineers using a field projection or a hologram. However as far as he knew there wasn’ t an Avatar enabled Galnet console on the entire station that could be used for a hoax like that. There, almost done, The new part was in place, all that was left is to tighten the inflow connection, test the seal and turn the flow back on. Seiko suddenly felt someone watching him. It was something just outside of his field of view and he turned. Seiko’s scream echoed through the empty corridor. --- “Glad you came on such a short notice Mr. Sinclair.” The station manager greeted the tall blonde man that stepped through the air lock membrane. “I was in the proverbial neighborhood Mr. Osborne. Earth is not too far after all and Earth is my home.” “I guess everyone has to be home somewhere, Mr. Sinclair I assumed you came all the way from Pluribus. I must admit I never heard of Workgroup Olympus before, but I am sure glad the science council has such a department.” The blonde man wore a black combination of pants and jacket and thin leather like gloves he said. “We are a very small department with very little public exposure. Mostly of course because there aren’t many taking the supernatural very serious or put much stock in, let’s say ghost stories.” “I haven’t either Mr. Sinclair until I became the station manager of Exhault 5. Our ghost is always has been sort of a mascot. Not that anyone really believes the apparition exists.” “So what about the claim of a confirmed spiritual visitation?” “A publicity stunt, at least that that is what we believed. It was a new story in the Union Herald almost 250 years ago. A visiting reporter claimed to have interviewed the ghost, this is how we know the ghosts name.” The Station manager spread his arms, the reputation of the Union Herald in terms of being a serious magazine is, as you probably know not the best. The magazine even awarded the ghost with the Diana Spencer Award for contributions to paranormal science. Other than the whacko crowd that reads that rag no one has ever taken it serious. It provided us with visitors of that crowd that occasionally descended on the station. Station Managers before me always encouraged them as it was good business, for our two hotels. Now I have never put much credence to that. I smiled and dismissed the occasional sightings and stories. That all changed about six month ago. Mr. Sinclair the ghost is real and he kills. The last time only yesterday.” “Yesterday? That was not in the report that summoned me.” “Well technically happened this morning. One of my Environmental Maintenance Engineers spaced himself. He was found floating near the station apex. Security footage shows him running screaming through a corridor and entering an airlock without space suit and killing himself by cycling into space.” “Of course I see a pattern here relating it to the other cases, but I must ask this. Why do you think it had to do with the ghost? While it is very rare nowadays, insanity is not entirely unknown and men have spaced themselves before.” “Because the robotic toolbox recorded the last word of Seiko, the technician. He begs the ghost for mercy.” “Alright Mr. Osborne, I am going to listen to that later. But first I like to talk to the medics. A forensic examination of the body was made?” “No, we only have a med bot, our doc has left a week ago...” “It is still a death that did not occur naturally and a post mortem examination is required. Have you called the police or the rangers?” “Yes, and this is how I heard of you. The closest Union Precinct is on Mars and the rangers have no justistiction in this core region. I was told to call you and you would have full law enforcement authority.” “Luckily I came prepared. Have my gear unloaded and assign me a workroom or a lab.” “I have that done right away. You can use the main lab, they haven't been used for centuries.Nothing really to research.” “Appears there is now.” – The post mortem was inconclusive. While the cause of death was of course no mystery,John hoped to find drugs or or evidence the man was psionic gifted. Seiko had been clean, no drugs or alcohol in his system and no evidence he used any legal or illegal tox.The technicians HPI was recorded at 70 and way below the threshold where even the weakest psionic ability would manifest. His pineal gland was neither enlarged nor did it have the typical psion receptors that were signs of psionic abilities. The dead tech before himon the table had led a quiet boring life and no history of mental instability. Yet someone or somewhat made him to commit suicide. Sinclair uploaded scan med central, but only to be diligent not that he expected any results. Seiko was technically the first victim of the reported ghost, but there had been six acidental deaths in only two month. That was a significant number as , the entire station had a skeleton crew of only eighty six and there hadn't been any fatal accidents prior. He wondered if this turned out to be similar like his last case. Colonists of Trevor 4 reported nasty demon spirits and preventng them frommining the rich Tellurium deposit they had found. It wasn't demons but a hired PSI talent working for one of the miners who wanted the mine all for himself. It became a case for Psi Corps and Federal Police, and wasn't paranormal at all. John put the corpse into a stasis freezer and a S-10 General service robot started to clean while he went to the adjourning office. For a moment he felt as if he was not alone,but as he turned there was nothing. He shrugged his shoulders and used the desk unit to connect to GalNet. “System connect me to...” He stopped in mid sentence,there was this distinct feeling again, that he was watched. He turned and a scalpel thrown missed his face by mere inches and careened with a metallic clang of the wall and dropped to the floor. There was no one in the lab other than the robot and it pushed a surface cleaner across the floor. John was not easily scared and in his long career as special investigator for Olympus, he had seen and experienced most unusual things, but this attack from an invisible source proved to him, there was indeed something strange going on. He pulled his Personal Data Device, a very special and sophisticated PDD with integrated SII Science Scanner and genuine Leedei Psi detector. The scan showed no psionic source nearby. He was about to put the scanner on auto detect and then put it away when he noticed a strong spike. It was very short in duration, but above 800 psions. Almost at the same time an alarm sound filled the station. He ran to the door and was almost hit by a running Quadiped in security uniform. “Sir, I was send to to accompany to the hangar deck.” The four legged being was a member of a physical strong race and not know to be afraid of many things, but despite its non human face John was certain the Quadiped was quite disturbed. It was hard for a human to keep up with a Quadiped, so John had to run and asked between breaths. “What happened?” “An Engineer of Spatial Salvage Inc. arrived and he was killed by the Emergency air lock door. He was cut in half.” Thanks to the rushing Quadi Ped they arrived on the scene a few moments later. John catching his breath was greeted by the Station manager and a grizzly scene. There before the hangar access door was a big puddle of blood and in it the upper part of a human body. There also were two techs and another securtity officer. One of the technicians was a Klack and it wiggled its antenna in a nervous fashion, “That emergency door has not been used in almost 500 years, ever since we have forcefield membranes. I can't understand what avtivated it.” John realized he had stepped through the same door earlier today. “Emergency seal doors are activated during a hull breach or manually right?” “Yes Sir, but an automatic activation is announced by a warning siren and commences after the door is clear. Only a manual activation will close the door right away. The emergency button is under a cover that must be lifted. The seal has not been broken.” The Station manager was pale as a sheet of paper. “I was right there. The door closed without any warning.” “I was attacked in the lab. I want the HPI of every person aboard the station.” “You have full access to the personnel files.” – There was no one aboard with a Heidelberg Psi Index higher than 140, except of him of course. Telekinetic manipulation required a much higher level. “System, connect me to Union Central, Citizen registry. Federal Authorization code transmitting now.” A field screen establihed itself over his working table and the rotating logo of GalNet was replaced by a blue skinned Thauran female. “Good afternoon Dr. Sinclair you have reached Union Central, I am Specialist Sydor. I am a live operator as your CITREG access request must be verified by Legal before access can be granted.” He nodded. “I am fully aware of the privacy laws of CITREG. I am fully authorized by the Justice Council as federal investigator.” “I understand and your credentials do check out, Sir. However not even the Blessed Blue Virgin or God himself can get file access to a Citizen record without a court order.” “Fine I will request one, in the mean time give me access to the public information regarding one individual named Dr. Lynus Hayes” “That I can do, Sir. However I need more than a name. There are 3,454 individuals with that name.If you want me to include every individual named that way since the CITREG came online in 3412 Old Terran the number increases to 573,938 individuals.” “I had no idea this name is so popular.” “It is not,Sir . It is actually quite rare. The Census of 5030 counted 9 Quadrillion Citizens, do you want me to calculate the precentage?” “Never mind.” He disconnected and sent a court order request to his office. Then he did what he should have done right away and did a simple GalNet search and added all the facts he knew. And there it was: Dr. Lynus Hayes, astrophyyiscist of the University New Cambridge proposed a way for humans to take the next step in evolution. Distracted by a steain of hair blowing into face he brushed the unruly folicles back into place and suddenly realized, there should have been no breeze aboard a space station, at least not inside his quarters. He turned and froze in mid movement. There by the wall hovered a human being, a man in a kimo cut suit. That he could clearly see the wall through the thing and that his body faded into nothingness past his knees made him certain that this was no notmal visitor. His Psi detector spiked past 400. He swalowed and said. “I am Dr. Sinclair special investigator of the Science Council. Identify yourself.” The aparition laughed silently, no sound passed the insubstantial lips, but then how could the thing create sound without vocal cords or a body for resonance. He said. “Alright Mr. Hayes I am turning of my Psi shield., but be warned I am quite capaple of psionic defense myself.” John did press the subdermal stud on his neck that turned of the implant. Sure enough the ghost did communicate on a telepathic level. “”Do what you want Dr. Sinclair. I won't permit any of you to scrap this station.” “Let's stop right here, Dr. Heyes.You commited murder and your cheappsionic tricks won't help you anymore. “ Sinclair concentrated and unleashed a battle thought just as he had learned at the Academy. He was a good telephat and had received the finest psionic training by an instructor of the PSI corps. A battle thought was concentrared emotional responnse focused onto another mind. His demonstration did have the desired effect and the apparition moved back with a painful expression on the pale face. “Don't disapear, Mister. I want answers. If you decide to hide. I have the station evacuated and call the PSI corps. They won't ask questions, but make sure you won't be murdering anyone anymore.” Category:Fragments